Jeff Rice
For The New Era
This is the second consecutive year that students in the Sweet Home School District have been honored for their volunteer efforts in conjunction with “Make A Difference Day”. Make A Difference Day is the largest nationally observed day of service to others with more than three million persons this year giving their time and talents to improve their communities and world.
Students from Crawfordsville Elementary, Foster Elementary, Hawthorne Elementary, Holley Elementary, and the Sweet Home Junior High were recognized as recipients of the National Newspaper Award for Oregon in the April 19, 2004 edition of the U.S.A. Weekend Magazine.
This honor celebrates the participation, hard work and the dedication of the students and staff of each school to Make A Difference in Sweet Home.
The students worked cooperatively in a canned food drive which brought in over 4007 pounds of canned food for the Sweet Home Emergency Ministries. In addition to the food drives held at each school, many other activities were also accomplished. Students were involved in several community-wide clean up projects, painting playground equipment, and providing aid to a local family that lost their home in a house fire.
The next Make A Difference Day is scheduled for October 23, 2004.
“As being able to participate as an area project coordinator for Sweet Home these last couple of years, I have seen countless young students getting excited about being able to help someone else. The time spent in service to others self-affirms our worth and value and it makes Sweet Home a better place to live for all of us.
“In looking towards the future, my primary goal is to encourage each school and the students to continue to Make A Difference in our community. It is through helping others that we ourselves are helped to become a better person. I would like to close with the immortal words of Theodore Roosevelt, former U.S. President; ‘This country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a good place for all of us to live in.'”